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Docking Windows

Started by Demonocracy, May 20, 2014, 06:37:14 AM

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Demonocracy

When I'm building and maintaining my town, I have a multitude of windows docked at all times to monitor various information and locations.  I was wondering if this is a common strategy or if others just pull up the information as it's needed.

Here is an image of the windows that are always up as I play.





slink

You've got them docked in the wrong position, of course (just kidding).  ;)  But yes, those are what I have open until I get the Town Hall.  Then I replace all the market windows with the Town Hall window.  Before I have any markets, I use the barn window(s).

Demonocracy

I don't use the town hall.  I have one, and I refer to it here and there to determine the overall values.  But since I end up creating a massive sprawl in so many areas, it's important that I monitor each area's supplies.  The overall on a minute-by-minute basis is monitored with the Statistics menu for the town, which allows me to keep track of all critical materials.

Maybe I'll try the town hall instead of the Market Places though.  It seems to be serving you and likely others well, so... I'll give it a whirl.

nmid

@Demonocracy that's what I do too.. though I like having more windows though.
When I recently upgraded to a desktop monitor attached to my laptop (up from 1360 to 1600), the amount of extra space made me salivate!
(that's why my screens aren't perfectly aligned yet.. :p)

This is how I do it:


Town Info, Resources tab on the top left.
Townhall on the left.

Professions on the bottom left. Information box right beside it.

On the top right, the minimap.
On the right side of the screen, all the incomplete buildings I want to keep track of.

When I want to trap a trader and I need to keep a trade window open, I do it right below the townhall tab ... and if I need multiple trade port windows, then I put it on the right side.

I do wish we could tab these windows, like our new browsers :)

mariesalias

I definitely do this! If i am deeply micromanaging something I can have half my screen covered. :\   Here is a reasonable recent screenshot.

The town info, chat log, map, and profession tabs are always docked in the same place. Well, the map sometimes goes below the professions tab, depending on what I am tracking.

The Town Hall window would not normally be there if I have it open but to the right, above the menu buttons. I will leave it there in the middle if I want it to be 'in my face' so I won't forget it. In this example, it is there as I quickly build some homes for my young (educated) people in key areas. That way the Nomads, when I hot accept, will go to boarding house and I will shuffle around my educated people to free up homes that always seem to have laborers in them for the uneducated Nomads.

Until my forests are fully established, I start them off as plant only and then once they are fully filled in, I cycle them between plant only and cut and plant both. If i don't keep them open on the right, I will forget about them. Over on the right here, I will also keep mines and quarries that are below a certain percentage to keep an eye on them, pastures to make sure they start breeding and don't die off on me (initially), barns/carts in the beginning, and any production buildings I might need to track for awhile.

Left side of the screen is for things being built or queued to build. I also use the bottom area for things that I want visible (like market or forestry circles) but will not be building for some time.


@nmid I want your resolution!

I am hoping that modding will allow for us to dock tabs on a second monitor! Then I can track what i want to track and still see this lovely game . :D

Kaldir

I'm still just a beginning Banished player, and I only have the Professions (top right), Eventlog (bottom left) and City Info (bottom left, above eventlog) windows open at all time, similar to mariesalias screenshot.
I often check the City Hall window, but always close it because of screen space, although I play on a 1920x1080 resolution.

Buildings I'm building (paused or not) always go far right, below the professions, often partly on top of each other (sort of tabbed, like @nmid would like). Windows I want open for influence circles go somewhere out of sight, sometimes even behind the eventlog or professions.
I like to see most of the Banished world ;D

The minimap I hardly ever use. I find it quite useless myself, because I can't really see where my buildings or roads are and can find all parts of my town pretty quickly with just edge scrolling. And I'm quite good at memorising the map.
Same with the Resource Limit window; I automatically memorise it (my mind loves numbers).

Why do some of you keep the Market or Barn windows open? What do you look for in those windows? Or: what info am I missing that I should keep in touch with?
To me the inventory of those change to fast to really see what's in there. Before I can find in which column the Iron Tools are this time, it shifts again.

mariesalias

@Kaldir I keep the barns and wagon open in the beginning to keep a closer eye on the food levels and to make sure at a glance that everyone is producing the amounts they need to. This also reminds me to build a Blacksmith before too long as I can clearly see the tools going down as I am watching the food. Once the first barn gets 1/2-3/4 full I close it and just watch the food numbers on the town info window. I used to keep markets open for awhile until I was sure they were filling up properly but have stopped, now I just check on them periodically and adjust my vendors as needed.

I only started keeping the map open in the last month or two. I started keeping it open to keep myself orients North so I can place my orchards  properly. I noticed in so many of my earlier towns that I twisted my viewpoint around so much i could not tell which direction was which. I think you can also click on the map and move to a different area. I may be thinking of a different game but as I have been mostly playing Banished for the past few months, I think it works. I always mean to use it but forget. I'll try to remember to check when I am next in game.

I also 'hide' radius buildings sometimes but usually i just stack them all together in one spot.  I never use the Resource Limit window. I am constantly adjusting most of those numbers and when they get to a point where I don't have to adjust it much, I just remember what my limit was. The Town Hall is best, imo, for keeping track of what you have in your town. I love the inventory window and use it all the time. When I keep the Town Hall window open it is usually because I am tracking homes/families or the town inventory.

slink

@Kaldir: At x1 or x2, I don't find the inventory of the marketplaces changes all that quickly.  On the rare occasions when I play at x5 or x10, I don't bother monitoring anything except the log and the small summary window.  I'm usually after an award at that point and all of the planning has been done.

Kaldir

#8
@mariesalias and @slink, thanks for the answers. After my first few fiasco's, I never play on a speed faster than x2. My mind is pretty slow at recognizing where in the inventory windows the Tools are. If the numbers would have a static place, it would be so much faster for me. So I usually watch the numbers in the town info window closely for food, tools and such. Since I can't really adjust the priority of what my vendors are gathering, the individual markets don't tell me much (except the need for adding more vendors, but that I do mostly based on available citizens).

When the town is still small, I often get scared by a sudden drop of food and firewood numbers, only to realise shortly after that I just built a couple of houses and the newly moved in started to hoard.

I guess my mind has a seperate mini map window inside, since I always seem to know which way is north. Just wish my mind could do the other windows as well, so I could see even more of the landscape.

slink

It took me several days to figure out what the tiny little icons on that summary screen meant.  Before that, I kept open all of the stockpiles, as well as all of the barns.  That was before I learned to use marketplaces.

rkelly17

#10
Here's my standard set up:



I'll often have other windows open depending on what I'm doing and will often move two windows next to each other when I want to compare stats of inventory or something.

The market windows and hunter windows are open and the circles on so that I can remember where to build and where not to build.

I'm more than a bit impatient, so I usually play on 10, but I pause a lot to react to events (I always trade on pause, for example) or plan things out. I drop down to one to just enjoy a sunny day and watch people move around or when there is an epidemic.



mariesalias

I think it is interesting and cool how we all have our UI elements set up differently, yet they all work well for us.

I usually play on 2x, though I will go up to 5x if I am waiting for things to build and the town does not need my attention at that time. I like to just look at the town too though so it is a toss up really. If I am playing with a goal in mind (like an achievement), I am more likely to speed it up.


@Kaldir The inventory items in the Town Hall are alphabetical. So even though the layout will change as you add more goods to your town, I find i can quickly find items when I look for the beginning letter first.


Kaldir

Quote from: mariesalias on May 20, 2014, 07:29:59 PM@Kaldir The inventory items in the Town Hall are alphabetical. So even though the layout will change as you add more goods to your town, I find i can quickly find items when I look for the beginning letter first.


It's just my mind having trouble here. My mind does wonders with numbers (I still know old phone numbers of fellow students I haven't spoken to in over 25 years), is quite fast with static placement of items (I can very quickly see the amount of Herbs in the Town Info window, without looking at the little icons; same with the Professions window), and does fine with a linear list of items.


But when items change position in more than one direction (in this case multiple lines over three columns), my mind boggles and it takes a long time to interpret and see where everything is.